Brainstorming Thread - One-Trick-Pony Techs

I was honestly looking for anything to give to Modern Health Care. Also, in the next version, Hospital will be a replacement for Doctor's Office, so that might dial back the health a little. I think that Health and Happiness need analysis somewhere down the line, especially in the end eras.

+2 to Hospital via Modern Healthcare isn't that late in the game, so it could possibly work just fine. I still don't see many cities plagued by unhealthiness in the mid to late game, however. My city Athens was unhealthy for all of the early game and up until the early Renaissance era because it was surrounded by Flood Plains, but most of my other cities were Healthy for pretty much the entire game. And that was without a Healer's Hut or Doctor's Office!

I'm not sure what else MHC could add or influence, so I figure for now the +2 to hospitals would probably be for the best.


Also I just noticed that running Superhuman civic (No from population) and building a Matter Decompiler fully negates all in a city it seems. It does come very very late in the game, but I just noticed that combo...
Kinda late to notice it, but I don't get to the Transhuman era very often ^^;

Here's something I was thinking about while looking at building lines and clusters: what should the Pharmacy building do once you get to Smart Drugs? I'm thinking either the Pharmacy should go obsolete or it should get a bonus from the Smart Medicine resource. The Pharmacy is a really simple building: +1, and an additional +1 from Chemicals (which only serves to offset the +1:unhealth: from the Chemicals in the first place). The Smart Medicine resource that you get from building the Research Hospital gives +2 and +1. There isn't a way to make a building obsolete or replaced by a resource.

Vokarya said:

Here's something I was thinking about while looking at building lines and clusters: what should the Pharmacy building do once you get to Smart Drugs? I'm thinking either the Pharmacy should go obsolete or it should get a bonus from the Smart Medicine resource. The Pharmacy is a really simple building: +1, and an additional +1 from Chemicals (which only serves to offset the +1:unhealth: from the Chemicals in the first place). The Smart Medicine resource that you get from building the Research Hospital gives +2 and +1. There isn't a way to make a building obsolete or replaced by a resource.

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Perhaps the Pharmacy could get a small bonus with access to the resource? Like the Smart Medicine is developed and tested in the research hospital, and when it's passed its inspections it's sent to the Pharmacies to be distributed and sold - thus producing a little extra commerce in the town

If there are no other suggestions, Rezca's idea could be a good one, imo.

45°38'N-13°47'E;13003127 said:

If there are no other suggestions, Rezca's idea could be a good one, imo.

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It's a good one, but I'd like to tie the ability directly to the tech and not to the resource. How about all Pharmacies get +2 with the Smart Drugs tech?

Does anyone have a good name for a Renaissance-era laboratory building? I would like to make Alchemist's Lab and Laboratory a three-building chain with a new intermediate lab at Chemistry tech. I do not want to call it a Chemical Laboratory. It sounds a little artificial for some reason.

The first thing I can think of is making the new building just the Laboratory and calling the current Laboratory a Research Laboratory, but I'm not sure if there might be a better name.

There is one other thing that we can do with Modern Health Care, and that is Penicillin as a World Project. Like some of the other medical projects (Cure for Cancer, Longevity, etc.), this would provide a health bonus to every city on the map, coupled with a smaller bonus (happiness, commerce, or something else) for the actual builder. I don't know if we really want to go down this route, but it's there.

Vokarya said:

It's a good one, but I'd like to tie the ability directly to the tech and not to the resource. How about all Pharmacies get +2 with the Smart Drugs tech?

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Sounds good to me


Hmm Renaissance-era laboratory... I'm afraid I can't think of anything there xD
At least nothing that would fit in that era... Moving Laboratory to the Renaissance and the current modern Laboratory could be renamed to something else, as you said.

I agree about Pharmacies and I like the Penicillin Project very much.
If I come up with a better name for Laboratory / Research Laboratory I'll let you know. But making Laboratory-->Research Laboratory in modern era could be a good idea because Laboratory is Research Institute for russian empire(it's Russia UB); so it sounds good enough to me to have Research Laboratory for everyone and Research Institute for russian empire.

I came up with a comprehensive idea that will help cover several of the one-trick-pony techs, and that is a new group of military civics. I know there are plans to do a comprehensive revamp of Civics later, so I'm just going to post these for now and then I hope we can incorporate them in later.

Warrior Caste (Requires Caste System tech): Your military is composed of soldiers raised and trained from birth. Small XP bonus, but penalties to food and production (soldiers don't like to work in the fields).

Raiders (Requires Mounted Archery tech): Your military is organized around the quick strike (Hun style). This would be a step up from Bandits, possibly benefiting Mounted units at the expense of infantry.

Corporate Warfare (Requires Conglomerate techs): You license out your warfare to multinational corporations. Lowers war weariness and increases corporate profits.

A fourth, related civic would be Mercenaries (available at Guilds tech): Your military is composed of mercenary soldiers. Low general upkeep and war weariness, but costs +1 per unit per turn.

Vokarya said:

I came up with a comprehensive idea that will help cover several of the one-trick-pony techs, and that is a new group of military civics. I know there are plans to do a comprehensive revamp of Civics later, so I'm just going to post these for now and then I hope we can incorporate them in later.

Warrior Caste (Requires Caste System tech): Your military is composed of soldiers raised and trained from birth. Small XP bonus, but penalties to food and production (soldiers don't like to work in the fields).

Raiders (Requires Mounted Archery tech): Your military is organized around the quick strike (Hun style). This would be a step up from Bandits, possibly benefiting Mounted units at the expense of infantry.

Corporate Warfare (Requires Conglomerate techs): You license out your warfare to multinational corporations. Lowers war weariness and increases corporate profits.

A fourth, related civic would be Mercenaries (available at Guilds tech): Your military is composed of mercenary soldiers. Low general upkeep and war weariness, but costs +1 per unit per turn.

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I like it very much. Civics will come at a later time and I do have some plan, but nothing about military civics so far. Your idea looks good to me. :thumbup:

Vokarya said:

I came up with a comprehensive idea that will help cover several of the one-trick-pony techs, and that is a new group of military civics. I know there are plans to do a comprehensive revamp of Civics later, so I'm just going to post these for now and then I hope we can incorporate them in later.

Warrior Caste (Requires Caste System tech): Your military is composed of soldiers raised and trained from birth. Small XP bonus, but penalties to food and production (soldiers don't like to work in the fields).

Raiders (Requires Mounted Archery tech): Your military is organized around the quick strike (Hun style). This would be a step up from Bandits, possibly benefiting Mounted units at the expense of infantry.

Corporate Warfare (Requires Conglomerate techs): You license out your warfare to multinational corporations. Lowers war weariness and increases corporate profits.

A fourth, related civic would be Mercenaries (available at Guilds tech): Your military is composed of mercenary soldiers. Low general upkeep and war weariness, but costs +1 per unit per turn.

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I like them... but... won't it be a little too much?
Warrior caste would be great, but the rest of them could be introduced into the game in a different way, not as new civics, I think.

Sogroon said:

I like them... but... won't it be a little too much?
Warrior caste would be great, but the rest of them could be introduced into the game in a different way, not as new civics, I think.

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I'm brainstorming ideas to give something extra to the techs that don't have enough. I really like the idea of the Mercenaries civic, as that's been a way for leaders to historically get in trouble by relying on their mercenaries and then not being able to pay them.

I finished the Paper resource and I'm about ready to upload it. The Paper resource provides +50% construction speed to School of Scribes, Scriptorium, Library, University, Printer, Press Agency, Publishing House, and School. It's not necessary for anything (as I am assuming there are numerous small paper makers all over any civilization that knows Paper tech) but having a source for quantities of paper makes it faster to build the buildings that are most dependent on it.

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Paper Mill itself follows the rules of National Wonders: limit 3, provides 3 Paper resources. The Paper Mill requires River Access and provides 1 . Integrated paper mills (which is what I'm assuming here) were known for their odors and noise.

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I am thinking of Paper recycling with some later tech.
It could give +1 with the Paper resource or at least +1 for the Paper mill.
Or... There is some Recycled goods factory, isn't it?

I really like the idea of the Mercenaries civic, as that's been a way for leaders to historically get in trouble by relying on their mercenaries and then not being able to pay them.

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Well I think mercenaries are the soilders you buy from other civs.

Corporate Warfare I don't find too realistic. It's seen in many sci-fi, but any goverment handling over it's military authority to some other is actually selling it's own sowereignity over the country.

I like the idea of raiders, but I think it should improve Bandits. Afterall you are still bandits but use horses

Sogroon said:

I am thinking of Paper recycling with some later tech.
It could give +1 with the Paper resource or at least +1 for the Paper mill.
Or... There is some Recycled goods factory, isn't it?

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Yes, there is. I think I will give Recycled Goods Factory +1 with Paper. Hammers from the RGF come mostly from metals.

I decided to go ahead and create the Penicillin project. This will come available at Modern Health Care and will replace the +2 that I gave to Hospitals. Instead, the Penicillin project is a little unusual in that the bulk of its benefits affect everyone and not just the builder. The project provides +3 to EVERY city regardless of owner, but also provides +1 to the owner's cities.

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Let me know what you think of this.

Vokarya said:

I decided to go ahead and create the Penicillin project. This will come available at Modern Health Care and will replace the +2 that I gave to Hospitals. Instead, the Penicillin project is a little unusual in that the bulk of its benefits affect everyone and not just the builder. The project provides +3 to EVERY city regardless of owner, but also provides +1 to the owner's cities.

View attachment 369571View attachment 369572

Let me know what you think of this.

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Hmm with all these health bonuses everywhere... What problem will Unhealthiness ever provide? Back in the 640 and earlier revisions, I had *never* seen any unhealthy cities unless they were nuked by a BBM / Plague Bringer or were Barbarian founded and had no health-buildings constructed yet.

Maybe there's a way to add additional unhealthiness into a city after a certain population? Like after a size of 50 or 60, it will add one extra per size on top of the usual one-per-citizen. Or extra on to some Modern/Transhuman buildings?


I mean... I do think the Penicillin project is a good idea, but seems to be completely irrelevant in the late game since there's so much to easily counter it. Spy missions to poison/anger cities don't leave any sort of mark, and it seems the only thing that can get a Transhuman city unhealthy is multiple biological nuke attacks on it.


Still, that's just my opinion and I haven't played the late-game enough to really know how much a problem / non-problem can be, for others it might be a problem enough that the many bonuses would be needed, but in my games so far it's never been a problem.

The problem got me thinking a little - and I have come to a conclusion, that might or might not make sense. There are multiple buildings that limit , providing health bonus per citizen. Which makes perfect sense. But on the other hand, there are no buildings that do the opposite, while those would make some sense too. For example, look at the places like Mexico City. Unhealthiness there is provided mostly by lack of housing and abundance of air pollution from automobiles. And that means (for me) that overpopulated and underdeveloped cities might have more problems with than current situation provides. The Mexico City slums are not really well-versed in terms of modern sanitation, for example, but I guess limiting buildings like Aqueduct and Sewer system to a maximum population they can supply would be hard (I mean, if we could for example make Aqueduct provide +0.1 per citizen, but only up to 20 citizens, it would be perfect in my opinion; on later techs, we could add another building acting like that, but up to 40 citizens, for example; same notion goes for other buildings like that). It would model that some citizens have difficulties with access to most up-to-date things improving their health, until major investments are made. As for the cars, there might be some merit to automatically built building here. For example, when techs that make cars possible arrive, every city with access to oil products would build Population commuting granting +5% (as driving to work gets easier) but also +0.15 per citizen (as driving cars is air-polluting, especially early cars). That penalty might be somewhat offset by building various mass-transport buildings, and maybe at some later technology, when electrical/hybrid cars get popular, the Population commuting might be reduced to +0.1 and +0.05 later, and maybe even 0 somewhere in Transhuman.

Other idea would be to put a bunch of event granting to some later buildings, like "Super-bacteria released" to bio-labs or even hospitals (you know, all the hospital infections are nasty), or "New drug with unforeseen side effects" to Research hospital. It would make buffer of important in major cities, to avoid even temporary problems for gaining 10 for 5 turns.